


Five Nights (In A Brave New World)

by butterflymind



Series: Five Nights [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-29 23:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/pseuds/butterflymind
Summary: Five nights in six months, somewhere in Japan.





	1. Wilde

**Author's Note:**

> This pairing burrowed its way into my brain after reading [Miri1984's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984) beautiful This Ship Is Cursed series. The title of that may well have a point, but I seem to have jumped aboard regardless.

Oscar Wilde had always liked Japan, in an abstract sort of way. He supposed that might be the trick of it, to only come here occasionally and stay for the short season of blossom before departing to the next social event. Or perhaps the trick was to come before the whole world had gone to hell and the weather had developed a murderous grudge against the sentient races. As it was, he had to say that whatever warm feelings he had held for the country were rapidly disintegrating in the unceasing rain. Wilde rounded the last bend in the track and stared at the place his contact had promised the inn would be. There was certainly a building there, and among a small cluster of other structures it stood tall and imposing. If it had been placed next to any of the hotels and inns Wilde was used to it would have appeared as short and squat as the buildings that surrounded it, but Wilde had learnt in the past year to adapt his taste to circumstance. In the current circumstances, the inn was the best and driest thing he had seen all week. Once upon a time he may have hesitated before knocking on the wooden door, so swollen with the constant rain it was almost bulging from its frame. And once upon a time he would have carefully prestidigitated his appearance before letting himself be seen by strangers. But once upon a time was a long time ago these days, so he strode up to the door and knocked before any remnant of his finer feelings could get the better of him.

The man who opened the door looked at him suspiciously. Oscar could hardly blame him, it was an entirely sane and sensible response to opening your door to a dripping wet foreigner inexplicably visiting your tiny fishing village in the rain. Oscar smiled at him winningly, which had very little effect.  
  
“Yes?” The man asked in Japanese.  
  
“I wish to speak to the owner.” Oscar replied. His hands, held demurely behind his back, were itching to cast a charm and become a trusted ally of this man without all of this unnecessary performance. He reminded himself sternly to behave.  
  
“He is serving the customers.” The man replied shortly, and went to close the door. This time Oscar allowed himself a tiny bit of power to stop him.  
  
“Excellent. I am a customer.” He pushed a bit more, and opened the door wide enough to pass inside. The man looked more suspicious than ever, but clearly decided this mad man was best not dealt with by him. He led him to the main bar, and indicated the man serving drinks.  
  
“There he is.” He said before disappearing through a side door. Oscar looked around, the bar was nearly empty, a few tables propped up sagging figures who were clearly habituated to the shape a body made when it was curled protectively over a drink. In the further corner a few families sat, eating from distressingly empty plates, and at the centre of it all was the innkeeper, leaning on the bar and talking animatedly to one of his customers. The customer did little but nod in response, his eyes fixed to the glass on the bar in front of him. The innkeeper, probably glad of the distraction, smiled cheerfully as Wilde approached.  
  
“Hello friend.” He said as Oscar took a seat at the bar. “What would you like?”  
  
“Your inn.” To his credit, the innkeeper paused only for a second before continuing.  
  
“That’s very funny my friend. What would you like to drink?” Oscar pointed to the bottle the innkeeper was holding.  
  
“I will have a glass of whatever that may be. And I wasn’t joking.” The innkeeper looked at the bottle as if surprised to find it in his hand, but poured a glass from it anyway and slid it over to Wilde.  
  
“The inn is not for sale.” He said as Oscar took a sip. It was strong, and bitter, but he mostly kept his reaction to the taste to himself. Sometimes a few damaged nerves could be a blessing.  
  
“We will pay you very well.” From the movements of the innkeeper's shoulder Oscar could see he was groping for something beneath the bar. He assumed that whatever it was would be sharp and heavy.  
  
“Are you from Shoin?” The fear was evident in the man’s voice. Oscar took a calculated risk.  
  
“No.” He replied. He paused and then added “quite the opposite in fact.” He saw the man’s grip on whatever he was holding below the bar relax slightly, although he had the sense not to let it go.  
  
“Why do you want the inn?” He asked, still suspicious.  
  
“We need a base of operations. We will pay you well for the inn, and we will pay you to stay here and keep running this place for the outside world to see. Your income will be regular, and any expenses from looking after us will be met.”  
  
“How many of you are there?” The innkeeper asked. He was wary, but interested. Oscar wondered if it was the money, or the possibility of ending the reign of Shoin that motivated him more. Either way, he was obviously a man inclined to hope, and therefore perfect for Oscar’s purposes.  
  
“Many, but not all will be based here. I have come on ahead to scout out the ground.” It was not quite a lie.  
  
“Perhaps we should…” The man gave a gesture that Oscar took to mean retirement to some back room to talk. He nodded, and against his better judgement picked up his drink as he prepared to follow him. The innkeeper barked a name through the side door Oscar’s first friend had disappeared through. There was some shouting and bashing of pans, and then the man himself appeared.  
  
“Mind the bar.” The innkeeper said. “I need to discuss business with this gentleman.” The man looked Oscar up and down, as if he could not think of a less gentlemanly specimen.  
  
“That’s not my job.” The man grumbled.  
  
“Your job is whatever I tell you.” The innkeeper snapped back, and walked around the bar and towards a door at the back of the room, gesturing Wilde to follow. “And I know what is in every bottle, so don’t think for one second of helping yourself.” The man shot the innkeeper a poisonous look, but took his place behind the bar. The innkeeper led Wilde through into what was clearly a private dining room, although judging by the dust it had not seen use for some time.  
  
“What will you pay me for the inn?” He asked without preamble. Oscar named a figure. When the man shook his head in disbelief Oscar showed him the bag of gold he was carrying. The want in the man’s eyes was almost pathetic, not greed, but a neediness that was both more noble and more depressing. “And we may continue to live here?”  
  
“Yes. We only ask that you take care of us, and any guests we might have. Otherwise you may carry on as before. We will pay you for your service, and you may keep any other profits you make from the inn.” The innkeeper’s snort suggested that this last part was not a particular inducement.  
  
“Will there be danger? For me and my family? For the village?  
  
“No more than there already is, with the Shoin on your doorstep.” Oscar said smoothly, praying time did not make him a liar. He continued before the man could ask any more questions along that direction. “There are some conditions of course.” The innkeeper gave him an expression that clearly said he had been waiting for this part.  
  
“Of course.” He said. “What would you require?”  
  
“Secrecy.” Oscar said plainly. “No one must know we are anything other than normal guests of the inn. I am sure you can manage that, but can your family? Your staff?”  
  
“You have already met my staff.” The innkeeper replied. “We have enough trouble getting him to talk to anyone at all. Keeping a secret should not be a problem for him.”  
  
“And your family?”  
  
“We have lived in the shadow of the Shoin for a long time Mr Wilde. We have all learnt discretion.” Oscar nodded.  
  
“Very well.” He looked around the room in which they were currently sat. “We may also need to make some changes to the building.” He said. At the innkeeper’s look he continued. “Nothing huge, just some minor alterations. Do you have a cellar?” The innkeeper looked surprised.  
  
“Yes. It is directly beneath this room, as it happens.”  
  
“How convenient.” Oscar smiled.

It took a few weeks, and some highly dubious building practices, to convert the inn for its new primary function. Oscar had supervised the building himself, although very much in the capacity of an interested observer. The mechanics of magic may have been an open book to him, but actual mechanics was a subject in which he had no knowledge and even less interest. Fortunately Einstein had brought them some Paladins of moderate talent and extraordinary work ethic. Not Hephaestus, who were still carefully avoiding the Harlequins and him, but a collection of some of the brighter minds of Apollo (and who knows how far he had to go to find those) and Artemis. In any case the effect, from the drop of the trapdoor to the secure anti-magic wards around the cell, was one Wilde found both impressive and deeply comforting. As for the rest of the inn, that had mostly been a matter of finding a space for Wilde to work, and bedrooms sufficiently far from the inn’s general population for him and the others Curie promised would join him sooner or later. He sat now at the table and chair he had commandeered as a desk, in the room he had done his best to turn into a reading room in a form he could recognise. His excuse to himself was the need of a familiar environment to concentrate. His efforts to get his books brought here, and the closest things to armchairs in wicker the village could provide, were all in aid of that goal alone. Privately Oscar was horrified to have the first pangs of homesickness in his adult life, at a time when his home was likely lost forever. His books at least were saved, and thanks to the Einstein’s erratic and eminently suggestible nature, loaded on to the bookshelves in this room. It had annoyed Curie almost to distraction when she found out, and there wasn’t a lot of fun to be had these days. Oscar found his fingers once again idly stroking the scar and deliberately put his hand flat on his desk, with all the activity he had barely had a moment to himself to think for some time. There was an enormity to what they were doing, and he was well aware it would overcome him if he allowed himself to think to hard about it. These days his world must be a jigsaw, a series of interlocking plans and actions that could be worked through without considering the whole for any length of time. This was what he was good at after all, the talent he had sold first to the Meritocracy and then to the Harlequins. He’d always known who’s side he was on, by who was winning at the time.

Sighing, Oscar pulled another map towards him, ignoring the way the smile that had twitched across his lips stopped dead where his face no longer worked as he remembered. He would get used to it, he had already got used to so many things. There was no point reminiscing in this new world, which was liable to stab you in the back as soon as you turned to face the past instead of the present. He looked down at the map in his hands and realised he had already studied it, just like the others on this table. He needed more information, a commodity he was used to having in regular supply. There were no more connections to be made until he knew more. Oscar was grumbling at himself when as if by one sort of magic, and quite literally by another, a message arrived. He listened carefully, and for a second the aborted smile made its way onto his face again. When Curie was gone he pulled a fresh piece of paper and a pen towards him, began listing the things they would need when his new colleague arrived. His mind drifted to the cell, to the quarantine he would have to impose. He imagined that would go down just as well as it had when Oscar had been locked in a cell in Cairo, his face partially healed and still stinging, his head still throbbing from the pain and Einstein’s pinball teleports. Of course from what he’d been told there would be other considerations, locking this particular man in an anti-magic field. He drew a line under his first list and began a second, less generic and more personal. His eyes fell on the empty corner of shelf space he had mentally reserved for some of his rare collections, should he ever find them. He wondered how much he would annoy Curie when he did it again, how many seconds he would take to persuade Einstein to one more favour. This time, when the smile spread across his face, he forgot to notice where it began and ended.


	2. Zolf

Zolf spent a good five minutes staring at the door before he knocked on it. He wasn’t in the habit of such indecision, not any more, but this was not quite the same as the decisions he had made for the last year. After leaving the others in Prague he had deliberately, and obstinately, moved only forwards. This was another step in that direction, but he wasn’t quite sure if it wasn’t also two steps back. He had made promises though, and he believed devoutly in what he was doing in a way he hadn’t for a long time. So he stepped up and rapped firmly on the wood, already slightly warped by the endless humid rain. The man who opened it was putting on a moderately effective show of not being completely terrified, but his eyes betrayed him as he ushered Zolf inside. There were a small number of other patrons in the parlour, and as he looked around Zolf wondered if they were genuine or just part of the pretence.  
  
“I’m here to see… “ He began, but the man who had opened the door made a panicked motion to him to hush, trying to cover it by directing him into a back room. Willing to play along Zolf entered the room, and found a low table and reed mat floor. He walked over to the table and tapped it, and then the floor beneath. As he did so his host slipped through the connecting door and handed him a drink. It was warm, and the steam that rose from it was heady with liquor. Unconvinced, Zolf sniffed it suspiciously.  
  
“Alright.” He said to the empty room. “I’ll submit to a week in the clink. But are all the theatrics really necessary?”  
  
“My way or the highway Mr Smith.” A voice replied. It was both familiar and strangely not, as if its owner had lived ten lifetimes between the last time they had met and this moment.  
  
“Does it have to be this way? It’s hell on the legs.” The voice was stubbornly silent. Zolf sighed deeply, then walked pointedly over to stand on the exact location of the false floor before downing his drugged drink in one gulp. “Fine, but if they get dented you’re paying for it." He said, and dropped into darkness. 

When he came to, Zolf wondered for a moment at the soft plushness of the prison floor. Cushions were not, in his experience, a standard feature of gaol cells and it took him a moment of fuzzy headed confusion to realise that he was in fact sitting in an antique wheelchair. Part of him immediately railed at this, he had obviously been placed in it while he was still asleep by someone who knew that an anti-magic field would disable his magical legs. That left a very short list of suspects, and the idea of being manhandled while unconscious by Wilde of all people was both disturbing and humiliating. Besides, the chair gave him limited movement at best. It was old and stiff, and the cell was not really big enough for decent motion in any direction. The cell was solidly constructed Zolf noted, and mesh was stretched between the bars to prevent even the smallest creature from sliding through. The anti-magic field was clearly potent as well, Zolf’s legs had lost not only movement, but also the limited sensation they gave him. He knew they were placed on the foot-board of the chair, but he could feel nothing of it, and the lack of proprioception was almost worse than the lack of movement. There wasn’t much he could do so he sat, glaring at the door in the wall beyond the cage until it gave in and opened. 

The first thing he thought when he saw Wilde was that he must have him confused with someone else. The Wilde he had met before had always been a pool of emotion, admittedly of emotions that had caused Zolf to waver between irritated, patronised and downright furious, but always very present in the world. This Wilde looked at him with such a calculated blandness that Zolf was tricked into showing emotion himself, like forcing someone to speak into a long silence.  
  
“What do you call this then?” He asked grumpily, gesturing to the chair.  
  
“The best I could do in the circumstances. “ Wilde snapped back. He had taken a step towards the bars, but took one back towards the doorway and shook his head, as if berating himself for the slip. In the brighter light from the hallway Zolf saw that there was something wrong with his face, its symmetry disturbed by a jagged scar that unbalanced his expression in new and interesting ways.  
  
“What happened?” Zolf asked without thinking. He assumed it must always be at the top of Wilde’s mind. It certainly would have been when Zolf last knew him. But Wilde just shook his head and lingered halfway in and out of the door.  
  
“Take off your clothes.” He said at last, brusque to the point of nastiness.  
  
“No.” Zolf replied reasonably. For half a second, Wilde gave him one of his old looks, almost teasing, but then it disappeared in a flash of irritation.  
  
“I need to check for the infection. Take off your clothes or no breakfast.” Zolf studied him critically. Wilde stood firm, but his expression shifted minutely, made more obvious by the clear nerve damage in his face.  
  
“You’ll have to get better at that.” Zolf replied, and began methodically loosening his clothing. It was not the easiest task without his legs, but he managed. He turned in his chair when he was done and faced Wilde, determinedly unabashed. He allowed Wilde a few minutes of passive inspection, and then moved closer to the bars. Using a combination of the chair, the bars, and his currently lifeless prosthetics Zolf levered himself up and turned around, balancing with difficulty as Wilde examined his back. When he felt enough time had passed, he turned again and started to dress.  
  
“I assume you’re satisfied.” He said, struggling into his clothes.  
  
“For today.” Wilde approached the bars and pushed a plate and cup through the small unmeshed portion. It was better food than Zolf had expected, steam still rising gently from some kind of stew. Wilde’s eyes met his for a moment as he bent to pass the food through. To his credit, this time his expression did not waver.  
  
“Better.” Zolf told him.

For the next six days the pattern repeated. Zolf remembered better how to balance without the sensation of the ground under his feet, and although he still needed the chair and the bars to pull himself up, he stood steady while Wilde carried out his daily inspection. After the wobbles of the first day Wilde also improved, his dispassionate treatment of Zolf increasing to the point that to an outside observer they would appear to be nothing more than prisoner and gaoler, perfect strangers brought together by circumstance. Only the stack of Harrison Campbell books that had appeared on the second day while Zolf slept spoke of any kind of familiarity between them. So it was something of a shock on the seventh day to see a different Oscar Wilde open the door to the room, brandishing the key to the cell door.  
  
“Finally.” Zolf said as the door was opened. He had got the trick of the wheelchair over the week, and waved off Wilde’s assistance as he manoeuvred himself out of the cell and towards the light spilling through the door. As soon as he passed the threshold he felt the tingle of the magic in his legs, waking like limbs too long asleep. The sensation was as peculiar and unpleasant as it had been the first time he had the legs fitted, and he gave it a moment to pass before attempting to stand. The moment his feet touched the floor and he felt it, he let out a sigh of relief he had not been aware he was holding. For a second he held his knees too stiff, legs locked as they had been when he had stood in the cell, but he made an effort to use the sensation in his toes and a moment later his brain adjusted, remembering the tiny unconscious movements of balance.  
  
“Better?” Wilde was standing behind him, leaning on the door frame.  
  
“Yes thank you.” Zolf said shortly. He understood the reason for the last week, he accepted the reason for the last week, but civility to Oscar Wilde had been hard enough for him to muster in the good old days, and it was in very short supply right now. He expected some sort of quip but Wilde simply skirted past him, treating the limits of Zolf’s personal space like a barrier he must not cross.  
  
“The inn is ours. Feel free to use the facilities as you wish.” Wilde had turned to face him from the other end of the corridor, a good four feet away. “I understand perfectly if you would like some time away from me. When you are ready, come and find me and we will talk about the mission.” Wilde gave him a nod, and then turned and disappeared through the door at the other end of the passage. Zolf stood and blinked for a moment, then followed at a sedate pace. The oddness of Oscar Wilde could wait to be unravelled after he had a bath, and tracked down the source of the food that had been feeding him for the last week. Once he had fulfilled his wish for seconds, and possibly thirds, he would be in a better state to deal with whatever was coming next. As he set off, his eye caught something in the seat of the wheelchair. He turned to look and realised that Wilde had brought the stack of Campbell books out of the cell and left them on the chair. Zolf’s face did something complicated, that was most definitely not a smile, as he picked them up. Difficult to get hold of here, he supposed. Must be careful not to drop them in the bath.

Zolf was probably ready to talk to Wilde that evening, but he left it until the next day anyway. It was partly a practical consideration, he had not had downtime like this since Prague, and certainly not when his frame of mind had been as stable as it was at the moment. He would also admit that the thought of keeping Wilde waiting for him for once had its own little satisfaction attached to it. When he eventually knocked on Wilde’s door, late the following afternoon, he found him behind a desk with a pile of paperwork. Zolf wondered if it was real or just some sort of comfort.  
  
“Mr Smith.” Wilde looked up and gestured him to the chair on the other side of the desk.  
  
“Mr Wilde.” Zolf responded as he sat down. They watched each other for a few seconds, a silent exchange uncomfortably close to combatants before a fight, before Wilde sighed and leaned back in his chair.  
  
“It’s good to see you.” Zolf raised his eyebrows.  
  
“I threatened to drown you.” A smile ghosted across Wilde’s face, and Zolf noted it was twisted on one side by the scar. Definitely nerve damage, not properly repaired. A healer’s instinct he had not lost despite his break with Poseidon twitched in the back of his mind.  
  
“Good times.” Wilde agreed. “I miss the simple life, don’t you?”  
  
“Life was easier when you knew what side you were on.”  
  
“Oh, I’ve always known that.” This time the smile was a rueful, self-deprecating thing.  
  
“Suppose you have.” Zolf agreed. “I’ve been sent here to work with you. You should probably tell me what we are doing.”  
  
“That depends partly on you Mr Smith.” Zolf grimaced.  
  
“Zolf. Can’t be doing with all that Mr this and Mr that. Too much like being on ship.”  
  
“Very well. You can call me Oscar if you like.”  
  
“Let’s stick to Wilde for now.” The twisted smile appeared again.  
  
“As you wish.” Wilde turned the paper he had been studying towards Zolf. On it was a crudely drawn map, Zolf recognised the inn they were currently in and some of the countryside beyond. Some distance away another structure was drawn in red ink.  
  
“I assume that’s where we’re going.” Zolf said, pointing to it.  
  
“Yes, but not quite yet. There are some dangerous people there Zolf, and some even worse between us and them.”  
  
“Aren’t there always.”  
  
“Yes, but this is going to require more subtlety than I think either of us are capable of.”  
  
“I can understand why you wouldn’t want me doing it then. But surely you…” Wilde cut across him, waving vaguely in the direction of his own face.  
  
“My previous adventures in the field have shown I’m not ideally suited to the task.”  
  
“What happened?” Zolf asked before he could stop himself.  
  
“Some other time Mr Smith.” Wilde dropped unconsciously back into formality. “Suffice to say, there is not much we can do as a pair. But we can prepare, and there are others on the way.”  
  
“What do you need me to do?” Once upon a time Zolf would have forced the point, only encouraged by Wilde’s obvious discomfort. He was less of that man now than he had realised.  
  
“For now, help me prepare for the others. Help me plan what we will do when they get here. Tell me what you know and I will return the courtesy.”  
  
“OK.” Zolf settled himself more comfortably into the chair and pulled the map Wilde had given him closer. “But you’re going to need to tell me exactly what is going on Wilde. No intelligence games here.”  
  
“No. Not anymore.” Wilde sounded almost wistful. But he bent his head to the map under Zolf’s fingers and began to talk.


	3. Barnes

“You never said it would be him!” Zolf was pacing.  
  
“I didn’t know until quite recently.” They were in the tiny reading room that Wilde had claimed on the first floor of the inn. The furniture was wicker, but he had somehow made it feel more western than anything else in the place by some considerable margin. A month ago, Zolf would have assumed magic was involved, but Wilde seemed more cautious about such things than even Zolf. Maybe it was just an aura that permeated any environment he was in, something about Wilde that said ‘country house library’ wherever he went. Still Zolf could admit he liked being in this room more than almost any other, found something comforting in the familiarity of it. He had also started to find something comforting in Wilde’s presence, but he wasn’t going to admit that to anybody.  
  
“You know what he did?” Zolf snapped.  
  
“As I understand it, he didn’t have much of a choice at the time.”  
  
“He could have done nothing. Let us be on our way after we helped him out.”  
  
“As I understand it, he’s not that sort of person.”  
  
“No.” Zolf said darkly. The strength of his own emotions had surprised him. He thought he’d made his peace with that part of his life, or at least everything that had come after was so awful as to have put a not particularly arduous stay in prison and a really quite reasonable commission buy out into perspective. And yet, the thought of Commander Barnes coming here had filled him with an anger and deep unease he couldn’t quite account for. It didn’t help that he knew Wilde would like Barnes, he was just the sort of person Wilde did like, whether it was returned or not. Zolf definitely did not want to examine why that thought made him uncomfortable. He continued to pace the floor until Wilde sighed and stood up, moving the three large volumes that concealed the whiskey and water set he had somehow procured on this godforsaken island. That one, Zolf was sure, must have involved magic of some kind, but it was in a good cause so he chose to forgive it. This had become their pattern over the last month, whenever Zolf was twitchy or Wilde sleepless. Wilde waited until Zolf had stilled his constant motion and sunk into one of the wicker chairs that stood in front of the bookcase before he condescended to hand him a glass. As Wilde sat in the chair opposite Zolf wondered when this ritual had become a calming one for him. It happened, he knew, if you spent a great deal of time in close quarters with somebody else. It was a natural sentient reaction to seek comfort in the person who was there, whoever they may be. Well, unless they were Bertie, who only grew more awful the longer you were acquainted with him. Zolf seemed to be having an evening for reliving old grudges, and wasn’t that whole incident alone proof of the intrinsic distrust Zolf should be placing in Wilde?  
  
But on the other hand Wilde had distanced himself from Bertie more thoroughly than almost anyone Zolf had met, although his methods had left much to be desired. And Bertie was attractive, if you ignored the ugliness of his personality seeping through the cracks in his facade. Zolf could see the aesthetic appeal, even as the rest sickened him to his core.  
  
“It’s going to be hard to get more.”  
  
“What?” The sentence was apposite enough that Zolf was momentarily confused. Wilde nodded to the glass in his hand.  
  
“I’d slow down if I were you. There isn’t much more where that came from, and we’re hardly awash with such luxuries.”  
  
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Zolf realised he had been absently drinking the whiskey while his thoughts were roaming away. The glass was already nearly empty.  
  
“No matter to me.” Wilde said cheerfully. “I won’t make the measures any bigger to accommodate you.” Zolf self-consciously held the glass in both hands. Wilde was watching him carefully in the way that reminded him that for all his studied carelessness and wry bonhomie, Oscar Wilde had survived in this new world with fewer scratches than most.  
  
“I’ll be needing more after Barnes gets here.” Zolf replied grumpily, but he made a conscious effort to slow his drinking. For a few minutes neither of them spoke until Wilde broke the silence.  
  
“Is he really so bad?”  
  
“No.” Zolf sighed. “Be a bloody sight easier if he were. He’s a good man, and a nice one. Sociable, good with people. Dealt with the lot of us with more composure than most.” Zolf paused, lost in a memory a lifetime away. “He’s handsome too, so you’ll definitely like him.”  
  
“Sometimes I think you overestimate my shallowness.” Zolf narrowed his eyes at him in mock judgement.  
  
“No, I reckon I’ve got it just about right.”  
  
“I’ve developed as a person.”  
  
“You mean you’ve been put on a small island with a limited and resident population.”  
  
“We can’t all be paragons Zolf.” Zolf laughed at that, albeit shortly and bitterly.  
  
“I’m hardly that.” He replied.  
  
“Ah. Were you tempted yourself then? Before the little misunderstanding over your resignation from the navy? Or did the thought cross your mind after he had you in handcuffs?”  
  
“Neither.” Zolf growled. Dangerous ground was being trodden. To his credit Wilde looked a little ashamed of himself.  
  
“Apologies.” He said, gesturing vaguely at the whiskey. “I sometimes forget I’m supposed to be a better man.”  
  
“Not necessary.” Two steps back from the territory littered with land mines. They could safely retreat if they chose, so it made little sense to Zolf that he decided to throw himself straight on top of the high explosives.  
  
“I’m not likely to be doing any of that.” He said, cringing internally at every word even as he was saying them. Inevitably, Wilde looked curious.  
  
“The man? Or the handcuffs?” He asked. Zolf did not know until that moment that it was possible to regret this more.  
  
“The man is fine. That’s not an issue for me.” He did not know why he had felt the need to clarify that. “And the handcuffs, well, the handcuffs were an issue at the time, but not in any of the ways you’re thinking of.” Zolf paused, still wondering what had possessed him when he brought this up, and tried again. “What I mean is, it’s not the specifics of the situation that matter, it’s the general idea.” He waved the hand holding his glass in a vague way, trying to waft the point he could not articulate over to Wilde. The amber liquid inside sloshed against the sides of the glass, fortunately already too empty to spill.  
  
“You mean the general theory, rather than the specific hypothesis in this case.”  
  
“Yeah. Well, that might be what I mean. What I mean is I have… lines. And they might not be in the places you’re used to.”  
  
“Will they shock me?” Zolf gave him an exasperated look.  
  
“Not in the way you’re thinking.”  
  
“Interesting.”  
  
“Not really.” Zolf sighed but he ploughed on, committed now and prepared himself for the inevitable questions. “I don’t need it. The sexual side. I don’t think of it when I look at people I like, don’t desire people that way, never have. I’m old enough now to know what I want, and it’s not that.”  
  
“But you still like…” Wilde paused, uncharacteristically lost for words. “Human contact?” Zolf rolled his eyes.  
  
“Yes. I still like ‘human contact’. Or other species contact for that matter. There’s a lot of things I still like. But I don’t need sex. It might be at the buffet, but it’s not what I came up to the table for.”  
  
“So kissing isn’t off the table.” Zolf raised his eyebrows.  
  
“With you? It is, but not for any of the reasons we’ve just talked about.” Wilde laughed.  
  
“So love and chastity then. And yet you never joined Artemis.”  
  
“I couldn’t get the hang of the bow.” Zolf took another sip of his drink. They sat for a while in companionable silence. 

“Why did you tell me that?” Wilde asked eventually, obviously unwilling to let the last of the awkwardness drain away.  
  
“Whiskey, probably” Zolf replied. Wilde gave him a disparaging look.  
  
“I have seen you drink, and I have seen you drunk. On this occasion you have not done nearly enough of the former to have achieved the latter.”  
  
“Never use three words when three hundred will do.” Zolf muttered. He cleared his throat, and took another fortifying sip. “I am trying to be more open.” He grimaced at the his own words at the same moment as Wilde smirked. “I mean, I am trying to tell people things about me. More than I used to. After I left them in Prague…” He paused, and watched the expression of mild surprise chase the smirk from Wilde’s face. He knew he brought up Hamid and the others so rarely that it surprised Wilde every time he did. To his credit, Wilde never brought them up himself. “After I went away. I thought a lot about how so much of it could have been avoided if I had just told them a bit more about what was going on with me.”  
  
“And if you had left Bertie in London.”  
  
“Also that. But I hurt Hamid, and Sasha, and they didn’t deserve it. And I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to say sorry. So all I can really do is try and do better.”  
  
“And tell me things.” Wilde finished for him.  
  
“Well, it’s not ideal.” Zolf sighed. “But it might be useful for you, tactically, to know I’m not likely to be compromised that way.”  
  
“It might.” Wilde agreed, sounding thoughtful. He had drunk sufficient whiskey during their conversation to overtake Zolf.  
  
“At least it is useful to know that Commander Barnes won’t be compromising either of us in the near future.”  
  
“Only if he decides to lock me in a cell again.”  
  
“But from what you’ve told me, he was indirectly responsible for your love of _literature_.” Wilde pronounced the last word with the exaggerated care that comes from deep sarcasm.  
  
“Well thank the Gods I wasn’t provided with any of your books Wilde, I don’t know if the cells could have contained the excitement of a man staring at his own portrait.”  
  
“He isn’t staring at the portrait, he’s hidden the portrait! The whole point is the emptiness of hedonism without…” Wilde stopped, and glared at him. It was not the first time they had performed this argument.  
  
“As I said, looking at pictures.” Zolf smiled serenely, and sipped his drink. There was a smile playing about Wilde’s lips which he was trying to ruthlessly suppress. They settled back into the comfortable silence that characterised their evenings most days. The calm washing away the last of the storm.

“We need Barnes though.” Zolf said eventually, swirling the remaining liquid in his glass.  
  
“We do.” Wilde agreed. “And for what it’s worth, assuming he passes the induction, he seems to be a trustworthy fellow.”  
  
“To a fault.” An almost smile quirked at the edge of Zolf’s lips, his heat on the topic dissipated. For some reason, when Wilde returned the smile this time the expression drew Zolf’s attention to the corner of his mouth that no longer moved with the rest. Wilde recognised the line of his eyes and his own smile dimmed.  
  
“Yes well, trust is a rare commodity these days.” He said. He gestured to his own face. “As you can see Mr. Smith.” Zolf’s eyebrows quirked, this was the first direct reference to the scar that Wilde had made in his presence. He had the sense to let it pass.  
  
“Are we back to the formalities Mr. Wilde? I thought we had made so much progress.”  
  
“Preparing for the arrival of Mr. Barnes. I don’t suppose he will approve of familiarity in the troops.”  
  
“Commander Barnes, if you please. And I don’t know what you mean, we’re hardly ‘familiar’”  
  
“I could be more familiar if you would like.” And there, just for a second, was a flash of the Wilde Zolf remembered. A silent mutual decision to let it go there was passed between them.  
  
“Would you like to handle the induction?” Wilde asked, sipping from his glass. Zolf thought about it seriously for a moment.  
  
“I’m not sure that would be a good idea.” He said finally.  
  
“Turnabout is fair play.”  
  
“It’s not a prison cell. Technically.” Wilde raised his eyebrows.  
  
“I think you may stretching semantics to breaking point.”  
  
“How about we take turns at it. If it’s just me he might think it’s personal.” ‘And if it’s just you he might think the same’ Zolf thought, but didn’t voice.  
  
“Probably best to be businesslike.” Wilde agreed, although his eyes were glittering in a way Zolf didn’t like. He drained the last of the liquid in his glass and stood. His hand rested on Zolf’s shoulder for a moment, and it might have been a simple comforting gesture if Wilde had not leaned a little weight on to him, as if he was also looking for support.  
  
“Goodnight, Zolf. Don’t forget to finish your whiskey.” As he left, Zolf looked down at his glass and realised that despite his fast start, he had fallen behind somewhere in the conversation. He was tempted to finish the drink in one defiant gulp, proving a point to someone, somewhere, even if he wasn’t quite sure who. But as Wilde had pointed out, it was good whiskey, and there was unlikely to be more of it. He sipped slowly, and savoured the warmth.


	4. Carter

In his old life, before the end of the world, Wilde would have experienced a spectrum of potential emotions on discovering that someone was sitting in his office, drinking his whiskey, with a glass poured for him and placed next to his preferred armchair. The spectrum would have run from anger, to wry amusement, to profound sexual attraction, depending on the person and quite possibly the whiskey in question.

These days Wilde had a lot less choice in whiskey, and in company. As such, his emotional spectrum should have been have been as simplified as his circumstances. And yet. Zolf was already settled in his office, among his things, and giving him a look Wilde had become so used to in the last few months that it had ceased to have any menace at all.  
  
“How’s our guest?” He asked, dropping into his armchair with none of the show of grace he might once of attempted. He wasn’t going to impress Zolf with that dance.  
  
“Much as usual.” Zolf grimaced. “Barnes is sitting with him.”  
  
“You really shouldn’t take advantage of his good nature.” A ghost of a smile crossed Zolf’s face.  
  
“Not my job to stop him being noble.”  
  
“True, but you could stop exploiting his nobility.”  
  
“Of all the people to say that Oscar.” Wilde grinned, he couldn’t help it.  
  
“Any nobility I have exploited was very much preceded by the definite article.” He replied primly. “And I see you have finally learnt my first name.” Zolf coloured faintly.  
  
“Slip of the drink.” He muttered. “And look at this way, of the three of us Barnes is the least likely to murder Carter.”  
  
“There’s something to be said for that iron self control.” Wilde agreed. Once upon a time this would have been a double entendre in Wilde’s mouth, but now it emerged as a statement. Wilde knew that Zolf was studying his face carefully, the way he always did when Oscar did something outside the construction of his character that Zolf persisted in clinging on to. He resisted the urge to touch his scar, but he knew Zolf had noticed the twitching of his fingers in his lap.  
  
“Would you like to know how I got it?” It was out of Wilde’s mouth before he knew it was coming. Zolf’s eyes flicked to his, wide with surprise. Then they dropped guiltily away from his face.  
  
“None of my business.”  
  
“No.” Wilde agreed. “But that’s no reason not to be curious.” Zolf was growing uncomfortable, he could tell. Oscar told himself that it was that observation that made him continue.  
  
“It wasn’t that long after your friends left me in Damascus.” He said. Zolf shifted in his chair at the mention of Hamid and the others. Oscar wondered if they would ever have that conversation. “I was still wearing the shackles, still trying to work out my next move.” He had already told Zolf about the shackles, and about the last movements of Hamid and his friends before they disappeared. “I crossed back to Cairo, went to Libya and took a ship from there across the Mediterranean. It wasn’t safe for me to travel by Meritocratic methods.” Zolf nodded. He’d been off the grid for considerably longer than Oscar, and Wilde was willing to bet he knew the back routes of Africa and Europe very well. If only he’d had him with him a year ago. Well, everything might have been different if that had been the case. “I drew some… unwelcome attention as I was crossing the border from Germany to the Netherlands. I had to drop in unexpectedly on an old friend in Aachen.” Wilde paused for a moment, remembering. “Of course, I didn’t know about the required precautions then.”  
  
“Infected?” Zolf’s voice cut into his reverie. Oscar thought he could tell this story dispassionately at this distance from the events. Apparently he was wrong.  
  
“Yes. Only in the early stages when I arrived. I found the veins when we were…” He stopped and swallowed. He felt Zolf’s hand ghost over his and opened his eyes in surprise. Zolf was closer than he expected and staring back at him, almost as surprised as he was at the contact. He made a move to sit back but Oscar surprised himself by grabbing at his hand and holding it. He found that he suddenly, viscerally, did not want to be alone in this story any more. For a moment Zolf looked discomforted, but then made an obvious conscious effort to relax. Oscar almost could not contain his gratitude. “Well, I found them anyway. Obviously I didn’t know what they meant. But it’s fair to say it became obvious fairly quickly.”  
  
“And he gave you that.”  
  
“Among other things, but luckily not the thing he was really trying to pass me. I’ve learnt to be a lot more careful since.”  
  
“You were lucky.” Zolf said it sincerely, despite the faint ridiculousness of the statement. “What happened to him?”  
  
“He took the knife in more vital organs than I did.” Wilde squeezed Zolf’s hand unconsciously. “Luckily there’s a lot of low lying water over there.”  
  
“I saw it first in Prague.” Zolf said. “I was reporting back to the University. I had… changed employers by then.”  
  
“You mean you were freelancing for an enemy of the state.” Wilde replied with a wry smile. “Happens to the best of us.”  
  
“It must have started the last time I was there, but by the time I came back…” He shook his head. “It was like being on ship when the pox is spreading. Everyone afraid, everyone panicking at any little sign. I learnt very quickly that it couldn’t be healed.”  
  
“The early days were the worst.” Wilde agreed.  
  
“I felt grateful.” Zolf said. “Grateful I didn’t have anyone to worry about in London. I saw people scrabbling for news, and all I could think about was how much worse we had made it with what we had done in Paris.”  
  
“That couldn’t have been allowed to continue.” Wilde said firmly. “It was headed for disaster, probably a worse disaster than this. No point berating yourself for something that had to be done.” He took a chance and released Zolf’s hand, only to recapture it and entwine their fingers. He was almost certain that Zolf would use the manoeuvre to sit back and reclaim his hand, but he allowed it, even pulling his chair slightly closer to make the position easier. The eyes that rose to meet his had just an edge of defiance in them.  
  
“I know. Doesn’t make it any better when you’re the reason people don’t know if their loved ones are alive or dead. I got over myself eventually. The Harlequins seemed to be the only ones with half a plan, so I stuck with them until I was sent to you.”  
  
“And what a happy day that was.”  
  
“Try not to strain something with that sarcasm.” The studied nonchalance with which they were ignoring the point of contact between them would have amused Wilde in any situation other than this. This was not the sort of man he was, not the sort he had ever been. Except that apparently he was that sort of man now, and wasn’t it amazing what a few scars and betrayals could do to a man’s personality? Of course, there was always the tiniest possibility that this man was the one who had been hiding underneath the beautiful clothes and careless debauchery since the first time someone broke Oscar’s heart, but that was far too depressing to contemplate. Instead he relaxed into the current moment, and was maybe more at peace than he had been since before the world imploded in his hands. It was inevitable, therefore, that something would ruin it.  
  
The knock on the door was soft, but determined in a way Oscar knew meant trouble. At the first tap Zolf pulled out of his grip and sat back in his chair. He had the sense, at least, not to move the chair backwards and give away his discomfort with the obvious scrape of furniture on the wooden floor. By the time Barnes (and who else could it be) had entered the room, Zolf had relaxed back in his chair and was holding his glass in both hands. Oscar looked up into Barnes’ face, and sighed.  
  
“Escaped?” He asked. Barnes shook his head.  
  
“No, but not for lack of trying. He’s slippery as a fish.”  
  
“Have you considered tying him to something?” Zolf asked. He had no time for Carter, Oscar knew, and any shred of patience he might have mustered up had evaporated when Carter began telling some less than flattering stories about people Zolf knew. Oscar had recognised the narrowed eyes and white knuckled grip as the danger signs they were and had removed Zolf from the scene as quickly as possible. Carter had not helped matters by throwing a final, flirtatious wink Oscar’s way as he bundled Zolf out of the room, causing Zolf to twitch and leading Oscar to expect a lecture about his previous life and habits later. The lecture had never come, but it had quickly become abundantly clear that Carter had burned through any good will his charm might have coaxed out of Zolf before he had even begun.  
  
“We can’t just leave him tied up.” Barnes said, and Zolf’s raised eyebrow made it very clear that he did not see why not. Oscar stepped in before the two of them could get into one of their contests of stiff backs and even stiffer speech. Once begun, they would likely be about it until daybreak.  
  
“I take it you need one of us to come down.” He said, rising from his chair. “As you’ve come all the way up here.”  
  
“The thing is, I can’t work out how he did it.”  
  
“Did what?” Zolf had also risen. Oscar, who had been half thinking of going down with Barnes and leaving Zolf and his temper out of it, shelved the idea with regret.  
  
“He hasn’t got out. But he has things with him.”  
  
“What things?” Oscar asked.  
  
“Paper, a geometry set, drawing tools, some books. Says he thought he might as well catch up on his field work notes while he’s waiting.”  
  
“As an archaeologist, his only interest in any sort of field is if there is gold in the middle of it.” Oscar placed his glass on his desk with a sigh, and hoped he would come back to it later. “I’ll come down.”  
  
“Me too.” Zolf said, placing his glass next to Oscar’s with somewhat more force than required.  
  
“Yes I rather thought you would.” Oscar muttered under his breath.

It was hard to say if Howard Carter looked smug, due to the high baseline smugness he had exuded from the moment Oscar had met him. He remembered finding it quite attractive at one time, which seemed odd now when all it was engendering in him was a faint sense of fury mixed with deep exasperation. If he was smug, Oscar admitted to himself that he had every right to be. Oscar had no idea if he had left his cell to acquire the items he now had, or if he had convinced one of the staff of the inn to get them for him. Judging by the barely suppressed growl from Zolf when they set eyes on Carter and his collection it didn’t matter much for his long term survival prospects. Without thinking Wilde placed a hand on Zolf’s shoulder, and dug his fingers in ever so slightly. Zolf shot him a look that wasn’t much better than the one he had just given Carter, but Oscar felt the tension in his muscles subside slightly. The most irritating thing was that there was nothing Carter had (with the possible exception of a pair of compasses) that they would not have been perfectly willing to give him if he had asked. Oscar wondered if it was force of habit, or if Carter was deliberately showing off for them.  
  
“Hello Oscar.” Carter gave him a smile that aimed for flirtatious but landed short. Oscar felt Zolf tense again under his fingers, and tightened his grip ever so slightly.  
  
“And Mr Smith! Hello. Gang’s all here.”  
  
“Carter.” Zolf’s tone was nothing but edges.  
  
“What have I done to deserve this honour?”  
  
“You’ve been collecting things.” Wilde said.  
  
“I’m an archaeologist Oscar. That’s very much my raison d’être.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be leaving this room. And you shouldn’t be talking to anyone here except us.” Carter shrugged.  
  
“Maybe I’ve been sending out good vibes.”  
  
“Maybe you’ve been thieving.” Zolf snapped. “Maybe you’ve been endangering everyone here ‘cause you can’t keep your grubby little paws to yourself.”  
  
“Ah, but I know I’m not a danger.” Carter replied. “So really, I’ve done nothing to endanger anybody.” Zolf looked like he thought Carter was a danger, infected or not. Oscar spoke quickly before he could tell him so.  
  
“If you don’t behave Howard, we will have to take further precautions.” Carter looked around the cell as if he could not imagine what further precautions they could take. Sadly, neither could Wilde.  
  
“I’m not sure how you think you could impede me any more than you already have.”  
  
“We could bind you hand and foot.” Zolf remarked. Carter turned his eyes to him.  
  
“Oh I don’t how much of an impediment that would be Mr. Smith. I can be fairly flexible.” His grin grew wider. “Can’t I Oscar?” Zolf twisted his head to look at him and Wilde held up the hand that was not on Zolf’s shoulder.  
  
“For once, not guilty.”  
  
“There wasn’t time.” Carter said sadly.  
  
“You’re not helping.”  
  
“It’s sweet you think I would try Oscar.”  
  
“We can all hope for redemption Mr Carter.”  
  
“Well, what can we do?” Barnes spoke up from his seat in the corner. Oscar had noticed that he returned to it immediately they got back to the room, keeping out of the line of fire between Zolf and Carter.   
  
“I’m still in favour of my first suggestion.” Zolf growled.  
  
“Sadly not practical.” Oscar replied, leaving Zolf’s side to walk slowly around the cage. “But we do need something.”  
  
“I’m always amenable to restraint Oscar.”  
  
“If only that were true.” Oscar continued to pace thoughtfully around the cage, aware he was being followed by the eyes of both Zolf and Barnes. “Where are the lock picks Howard?”  
  
“Whatever do you mean?” Carter was all innocence. It was as good as a confession.  
  
“You searched him?” Zolf shot an accusing look at Barnes.  
  
“Of course. Took away half a month’s pay in contraband.”  
  
“And what did you leave him with?”  
  
“His clothes. Some gold. A few things from his pockets.”  
  
“What things?” Zolf ground out.  
  
“His watch. Some pencils, scraps of paper, a little notebook. And his glasses.”  
  
“Pencils.” Oscar held his hand out to Carter. “Lend me a pencil Howard.” Reluctantly, Carter handed a pencil through the bars. Oscar took it, careful not to touch his hand. He examined it for a moment, then brought it over to Zolf and Barnes. The joint was impressive, the thin line of the tenon more obvious under his fingers than it was by eye. He took the two halves in his fingers and pulled them apart. A thin metal shaft glinted up at him, one end held fast in a narrow bore at one end of the pencil, while the other end, finishing in a hook, was held in the hollow bored out of the other half.  
  
“Neat work.” Oscar remarked. He turned back to Carter. “How many of them do you have?” Carter smiled back at him, but his good humour was clearly dimmed.  
  
“Why don’t you come and find out Oscar. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind inspecting my person.”  
  
“No thank you.” Oscar bent his head together with the other two. “We can’t touch him to search him.” He said. “And I wouldn’t like to bet on a binding spell with these sorts of stakes.”  
  
“Not to mention we’d have to let him out to cast it.” Zolf replied. He was looking thoughtfully at the ceiling and Oscar wasn’t sure how he felt about it.  
  
“Mr Barnes, you’re with me.” Zolf left the room with an air of determination Oscar didn’t like any more than his concentrated study of the ceiling. As far as he knew, Zolf’s break with Poseidon had reduced his appetite for righteous murder, but he wasn’t ruling out the chances of him making an exception. Barnes sent a glance Oscar’s way, and he shrugged in return and gestured for Barnes to follow Zolf. He went to go after them but when he reached the door Zolf turned back. “No Oscar, you stay with him. Try to keep him out of trouble for ten minutes.”  
  
“Anything else you would like? An end to the infection and return of world order perhaps?” Zolf gave him a look, but it was the one with a smile behind it.  
  
“Just distract him.” He thought about this for a moment. ”But not too much.”  
  
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Oscar replied, meaning it to be teasing and surprised when it came out more serious than he intended.  
  
“Good.” Zolf replied, equally seriously. It was at this point Barnes, who had been stuck between them like a spectator at the world’s most awkward tennis match, strode determinedly past Zolf and through the door at the end of the corridor. They broke eye contact with each other to stare after him. Zolf cleared his throat.  
  
“I should probably tell him where he’s going.”  
  
“Yes.” Oscar agreed. “And I should probably go and be distracting.”  
  
“Shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Oscar returned to the room, shaking his head as if to clear it. He would have liked to have spent a few moments of silence musing over whatever had just happened, but unfortunately this room contained Howard Carter, from whom quiet contemplation fled.  
  
“To be honest, I’m not sure what else you expected when you locked me up.” He said, settling back into his camp chair.  
  
“I think we were hoping you had learnt the value of the common good.” Carter scoffed.  
  
“I know we didn’t know each other long Oscar, but I would have thought you understood me better than that.”  
  
“It’s a new world Mr Carter. We’re all having to learn new things.”  
  
“I noticed. Been learning a few things yourself I see.” Oscar tensed.  
  
“I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”  
  
“Come on Oscar. You’ve been learning restraint. Patience. The value of things in small packages.” He quirked a speculative eyebrow and Wilde forced a wave of relaxation through his body against the rising tide of his anger.  
  
“And you will have to learn the value of compromise Howard.” Oscar smiled despite himself. “You’re here to be a team player you know. This might be a good time to learn how.” Carter was examining his fingernails now, and for the first time this evening he looked uncomfortable.  
  
“I don’t like cages.”  
  
“You knew the deal when you came here. No one can be too careful these days.” Carter grimaced.  
  
“I know I am fine.”  
  
“And in a few days the rest of us will know it too. But until then you need to stay put and behave.”  
  
“Hardly my forte Oscar.”  
  
“Well if you can’t manage it, I know a small package who will be more than happy to help you.”

They waited perhaps an hour before anything happened. Carter to his credit remained mostly silent, just the whisper of pencil on paper as he sketched. Oscar wondered how many of those pencils he was going to have to confiscate. The problem with Howard was that he could probably take every implement he had taken into that cell, and still he would have something hidden somewhere else. He was one of nature’s survivors, Oscar would give him that. 

Despite wishing for it earlier, he found there was far too much opportunity to think in the quiet that reigned once Carter had stopped talking. Zolf was a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a grumpy dwarf with a too sharp tongue. And yet, Oscar would have bet every word he had yet to write on them being on the precipice of something, before the Barnes and Carter show had interrupted them. What they were on the precipice of was the question Oscar could not answer, and he wasn’t sure how much faith he had left for taking leaps into the dark. Fortunately, his meander down this particular path of bleak introspection was interrupted when the ceiling above the cell began to creak. For a moment Oscar panicked that he had missed the arrival of another guest, another operative, but his fears were allayed when the trapdoor opened further and the faces of Barnes and Zolf peered in, brightly lit by the lanterns of the inn above.  
  
“Hello.” Zolf said cheerfully. The next few seconds were a flurry of confusion as Howard, unable to resist a spotlight, stepped into the space directly underneath the trap door.  
  
“Hello” he replied, giving a cheerful wave. Something dropped out of the trapdoor over him. Oscar heard Zolf bark ‘pull!’ at Barnes, and the next thing he knew Carter was hanging from the ceiling in a net bag. The light from above was abruptly cut off when the trapdoor closed, and Oscar and Howard were left alone in the room again, the former gaping openly and the latter making a series of indignant squawks as he swung gently in the air disturbance caused by the closing trapdoors. He was only just quietening when Zolf and Barnes returned to the room. Zolf’s grin was one of unholy glee, and Oscar tried hard to ignore the thrill it ignited down his spine.  
  
“You can’t leave him that.” He said instead, aiming for stern and horrified when he found himself sounding positively fond.  
  
“Six hours ‘til dawn. He can stay up there and let the rest of us get some sleep.” Carter had struggled his way round until he was lying in the net as if it were a hammock, and Oscar noticed that his sketchbook and at least one of his pencils had been swept up with him. He was using them now, settled into obviously feigned nonchalance. Oscar thought of mentioning the pretence, but decided to let him have it.  
  
“I shall make the best of it.” Carter said bravely, an act only slightly marred by the poisonous look he directed at Zolf. “And I’m sure we can discuss this.” Carter was still staring at directly at Zolf. “When I’m let out of this cell.”  
  
“Looking forward to it.” Zolf replied cheerfully. “Shall we gentlemen?” He gestured Barnes out of the room, and then did the same to Wilde. Oscar wasn’t sure if the hand he gripped Oscar’s wrist with to lead him out of the room was for Carter’s benefit, or meant something else entirely.

“That was ridiculous.” Oscar was pouring a second round of drinks, back in the wicker chairs of his reading room. It was a deviation from their usual pattern but that only seemed to fit this evening where nothing was quite what it was before.  
  
“He had it coming.” Zolf replied, already settled back in his chair and sipping his drink. “He should be grateful we’ll be cutting him down come morning.”  
  
“How on earth did you get Barnes to help you?”  
  
“Appealed to his worse nature.” Zolf smiled into his glass. “I was quite glad to find out he had one.”  
  
“I suppose Howard Carter can drive many people to many things.” Oscar settled back into his chair, sipping his own drink.  
  
“Yes. Speaking of.” Zolf let the sentence trail off but the meaning was clear. For a brief rebellious second Oscar wanted to ask what business Zolf thought it was of his. But he knew that by understanding the unasked question, he had already proved it was Zolf’s business.  
  
“Nothing. Really. We flirted when flirting was my first reflex.”  
  
“What do you mean when?” Zolf said sternly.  
  
“You wound me Mr Smith. Have you not noticed? I only flirt when I know you well these days.”  
  
“Yes, I had noticed.” His tone stayed gruff, but Oscar could see the smile twitching the corners of his mouth. Oscar wondered when he had learnt to read such subtle expressions on his face. “Am I Mr Smith again Mr Wilde?”  
  
“Only when you tease me.”  
  
“And when I tie up our prisoners for being irritating?”  
  
“Then you couldn’t be more Zolf.” They were smiling openly at each other now. This was a different kind of flirting to the kind Oscar was used to. Even in the old days he had always been playing on the knife edge. But this was warm, and comfortable, the woodsmoke rich smell of the whiskey and the comfort of these chairs and these books that were home when he was so far away. Zolf was watching him, His hands loose and relaxed around his glass. Oscar was just wondering if there was something he should do to break that gaze when Zolf stood up from his chair and leaned into Wilde.  
  
“Don’t make me regret this.” He muttered, half against Oscar’s lips. For a second Oscar froze in surprise. Then he wondered what precisely he was surprised about, and responded instead.  
  
“Never.” He murmured when they parted. Zolf fixed him with a dead eyed stare from three inches away.  
  
“Oscar.” He said very seriously. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”  
  
“Mean.” Oscar murmured and kissed him again just to prove to himself that he could.  
  
“Reprobate.” Zolf replied between kisses.  
  
“Says the man who ties up his prisoners.”  
  
“Morally justified. Not a court in the land would convict me.” Oscar shifted about until he got a better angle to curl his arms around Zolf’s waist and hold on. There was more desperation in the gesture than Oscar would have liked, but there was not a chance he was letting go.  
  
“I thought you wouldn’t want this.” He said into the skin of Zolf’s chest. Zolf, in the rare position of looking down on him, kissed the top of his head.  
  
“I told you, I’m too old not to know what I want.” He said, the words rumbling through his chest and reaching Oscar with a swell of vibration under his skin. “I want this. More or less from here on in, we’ll work that out.” Zolf tapped him on the top of the head to get his attention, and Oscar looked up. “Can you cope with that?”  
  
“Yes.” His answer was reflexive, out in the air almost before he knew it was coming. Some kinds of certainty burned through doubt. He settled his head back on to Zolf’s chest, gripped him tighter as if assurance was a physical thing. Zolf’s fingers were carding through his hair, and he thought vaguely that they should move somewhere else. Possibly somewhere where Zolf could do that forever.  
  
“Brave new world.” Zolf murmured.


	5. Changes

There was still whiskey in the evenings. Sometimes Barnes and Carter joined them, when they were back at base, although they always left before Oscar and Zolf finished their drinks. Despite them having never confided anything about their relationship to either of them, Carter proclaimed loudly that the general air of sappiness was too much for him. Barnes just gave them a parting nod and skirted around their space as if he felt like an intruder in a foreign country. It wasn’t even as though they were particularly sappy Oscar thought. For all his Harrison Campbell books Zolf was careful with affection around other people, he hoarded parts of their relationship with a jealousy that made Oscar want to keep all their secrets with him for as long as they could. Most nights the whiskey was long drunk and the reading room lights extinguished before Oscar got anything more than absent minded fingers running along the inside of his wrists as they handed him a glass.

Tonight though, there was no Barnes and Carter. And the world had shifted on its axis that afternoon when Curie had sent them a message through the rarely used private channels they kept with the wider world. Oscar wasn’t sure how he felt about the message he had received, but Zolf was feeling enough for both them. Relief, and anger, and grief, and fear, rolling off him in waves.  
  
“Do you think they’ll be, y’know, OK?” The look Zolf was giving him almost pleaded for the right answer. Oscar would have given all his gold and every ounce of his power to give it to him.  
  
“Impossible to say. If what they say about where they’ve been is true…”  
  
“Which Einstein confirms. And you know they went, you were there.” Zolf interrupted.  
  
“I was.” Oscar agreed. “And Einstein does confirm it. Then it seems unlikely they’ve met any of the infected in Europe.”  
  
“But it also seems unlikely they’ve come back at all.” Zolf finished the thought. “It’s a trap, isn’t it.”  
  
“Maybe. But on the other hand, if any group of adventurers could get into such a situation and get out of it again, I would place my bet on your friends.”  
  
“Not all of them came back.”  
  
“No.” He reached out a hand and Zolf took it, lacing their fingers together. It was an aching reversal of how they had started.  
  
“You knew him, the goblin?”  
  
“Grizzop? Yes.” This was him skirting the point Oscar knew, but he still couldn’t help the smile that came to his face when he remembered Damascus. Zolf was watching him carefully.  
  
“You liked him.”  
  
“I did.” Oscar confirmed. “He was short and mouthy, could heal you while making it clear he’d just as happily shoot you in the very same body part.” He couldn’t help leaning over the side of the chair and kissing the side of Zolf’s head. “I suppose it could be said I have a type.”  
  
“You never…?”  
  
“I’m still in possession of both kneecaps, so you can safely assume I didn’t try.” Oscar grinned. “He did strip me naked once. But he was looking for magical marks.”  
  
“Happens to the best of us.” Zolf was smiling, although the sadness and worry still hung about him like a shadow. Oscar thought it was the best he could hope for at the moment. “You didn’t trap him with you for six months until he gave in then?”  
  
“I only put that sort of effort in for people I really like.” Zolf raised an eyebrow at him but left that alone for now. He stared down at their joined hands, his face sobering.  
  
“She’s not necessarily dead.” He said.  
  
“No. We’ll know more when Hamid and Azu arrive.”  
  
“I grieved them once, I’m not sure I can do it again.”  
  
“Then we will have to hope until we know for sure.”  
  
“That’s hardly our forte.” Zolf replied, squeezing Oscar’s fingers. He had learnt in the past few months that Zolf communicated more by touch than almost anyone else he had ever met. He wasn’t sure if he even knew he was doing it half the time.  
  
“We’ve been lucky before.”  
  
“I suppose. But on the other hand, Carter was clean.” It was an old joke between them by now.  
  
“We’ll treat them like anyone else coming in. Let’s see where we are in a week.”  
  
“I know. I know.” The unhappy look was etching deeper in Zolf’s face. Oscar wanted to erase it, but they didn’t live in a world where that was possible any more. “I want to be the one down there with them.”  
  
“I wouldn’t want anyone else.” Oscar replied. “You will know quicker than anyone if there’s something wrong with Hamid.” Zolf grimaced.  
  
“I’m not sure about that, it’s been a long time.”  
  
“Not for them, by all accounts.”  
  
“If anything, that will only make it stranger.” Zolf was absent mindedly stroking the pulse point of Oscar’s wrist with the pad of his thumb. It was an automatic gesture that sent waves of shivers down Oscar’s spine.  
  
“We can’t get distracted from the mission.” He cautioned. He knew what Zolf’s response to that would be, the flash of irritation that would spark in his eyes. It was a calculated risk to bring his mind back from its maudlin wanderings.  
  
“Of course not.” Zolf’s tone was sharp and his thumb stopped moving, but he did not let go of the hand. Oscar thought he had got off lightly, considering. “I know what I’m here to do Wilde.”  
  
“Zolf.” This time it was Wilde’s tone that was admonishing. Surnames were for the world outside rooms that contained just the two of them.  
  
“Yes, well. Don’t question my commitment to the mission then.”  
  
“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it.”  
  
“Time for distraction would be a fine thing.” Zolf grumbled.  
  
“I think we do alright, under the circumstances.” This brought a flash of mirth to Zolf’s face, just as quickly hidden.   
  
“Do you really think I would abandon all this now?”  
  
“No. Of course not.” Oscar sighed. “And I don’t think you would compromise anything we’ve worked for. But I knew you when you were in the Rangers. I know how far you would go to protect them. You defended Bertie for goodness sakes.”  
  
“That was more about our team image.” Zolf argued. “And besides, you deserved it.” Oscar made an equivocal gesture, but didn’t argue the point.  
  
“And now, if it was Hamid’s life or the mission? What would you do?”  
  
“I would complete the mission.” Zolf said it firmly, but he looked sick with it.  
  
“I believe you. But I’m going to keep asking.”  
  
“You do that.” Zolf’s eyes were on their joined hands again. They both knew which question Oscar wasn’t asking of either of them. There could be no good answers there. Oscar would work as hard as he could to ensure they never had to find out which way they would fall if push came to shove.  
  
“Another drink?” Oscar asked. Their glasses weren’t empty, but it was the first safe topic his mind could supply. Zolf looked down at the tumbler in his other hand in faint surprise, as if he had forgotten it was there. He shook his head, and downed what was left of it in a single gulp. Oscar felt a twinge of pain for good whiskey in the hands of hardened sailors.  
  
“Bed.” Zolf said firmly. He looked pointedly at Oscar’s glass until Oscar gave up and swallowed the last of his own drink.  
  
“Has anyone ever explained the concept of a sipping whiskey to you?” He asked as he reclaimed his hand and levered himself out of his chair.  
  
“You, many times.” Zolf replied, standing and gesturing for Oscar’s glass. He was constitutionally incapable of leaving the glasses un-rinsed in the evenings.  
  
“Have I not explained it well enough?” Zolf shrugged.  
  
“How would I know? I never listen.” He herded Oscar out of the room ahead of him. “Go and warm up the bed. I’ll just rinse these.”  
  
“They’d be fine until morning you know.” Oscar commented over his shoulder.  
  
“Yes, but I wouldn’t. And then neither would you.” Zolf flapped a hand at him in a shooing gesture and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction, leaving the echo of Oscar’s exasperated huff behind him.

The combination of a bright spring moon and the slightly askew shutters on the bedroom window was filling the room with moonbeams. It was always like this when the moon was full, or waxing fat and gibbous. It reminded Zolf of the rare peaceful moments aboard ship, when he had been lucky enough to have a slip of window near his bunk. But this light didn’t move and waver with the water, and no bunk aboard ship had ever been as comfortable as this bed. Nor had he spent many nights aboard ship sleeping with his head on the chest of a human who’s pale skin was turned marble like by moonlight.  
  
“I know you’re awake.” The human in question mumbled, voice sleep roughened and vaguely accusing.  
  
“I knew you were too.” Zolf replied. He had; the steady thump of a heartbeat under his ear had quickened, the limbs flexed and relaxed without their owner’s consent. He lifted his head to look into Oscar’s face. His eyes were cat-like half closed slits, moonlight glinting off the sliver of iris. He had creases from the bed linen across part of face, lines that criss crossed with the scar, and his hair fell loose and untamed on the pillow. It was at these moments that Zolf remembered he was beautiful. The carefully professional Wilde who operated in the outside world had to Zolf nothing on this version that existed only in the liminal spaces of darkness and moonlight. He could see why Oscar guarded this version of himself so jealously, if it were up to Zolf it would never belong to anyone but them. It was a thought he never voiced.  
  
“Can’t sleep?”  
  
“Obviously.” Zolf had meant it grumpily, but the line between irritation and affection was apparently particularly weak tonight.  
  
“Anything I can do?”  
  
“Rest. At least one of us needs to be sharp tomorrow.”  
  
“I can never sleep when you can’t. You’re a very present person.”  
  
“Shall I go back to my own room then?” Zolf made a mock attempt to get up and Oscar, as expected, played his part by reaching out and grabbing Zolf’s wrist.  
  
“Don’t you dare.” He pulled Zolf back to lie on his chest. Zolf went willingly, and curled an arm around his side. “No such place anyway. There’s that storage room with your stuff in it, I suppose.”  
  
“Don’t you dare. That’s the only space I have in this place.”  
  
“What’s mine is yours.” Zolf tapped him smartly on the chest.  
  
“If that were true, those bookshelves would be less Wilde and more Campbell.”  
  
“I also have a duty to save you from yourself.” That earned him another tap, and they fell into silence for a few moments.  
  
“I don’t know why.” Zolf said eventually, “but it feels like maybe this is how it is meant to go.” Oscar yawned.  
  
“How what is meant to go?”  
  
“Hamid and that. I mean, if it is Hamid and that.” He paused and tried to gather his thoughts. This sharing of his mind still felt uncomfortable. “It just feels like maybe this is what we need, to get us going. Maybe we’ll finally be able to end this once they’re here.” He stopped. “Does that sound mad?”  
  
“It sounds like the triumph of foolish hope over tried and tested expectation.” Oscar’s chest vibrated with the words. “But I know what you mean.”  
  
“Will you send me with them?” Oscar snorted.  
  
“I’m not stupid enough to try and stop you going, if that’s what you are asking.” Zolf acknowledged the point and leaned up to brush his lips against the pulse in Oscar’s throat, basking in the scent of the hollow of his neck.  
  
“There’ll be less time for this once they’re here.” One of Oscar’s arms came up to stroke down Zolf’s back, his fingers pressing lightly into the the divot of his spine.  
  
“There’s never enough time for this.” He murmured into his hair. Zolf knew that Oscar could feel the tension in his body. “I assume you prefer they not know.” The tone was less hurt than Zolf was expecting, which was somehow worse than the fight he had been tensed for.  
  
“I think its safer if nobody knows.” He corrected gently, tracing lines down Oscar’s chest with his fingers. “I don’t want to be put in the situation where this is used against me.”  
  
“They would never do that.”  
  
“You’re assuming they are still them.” Zolf kept up the soothing touch, although who was soothing who was a matter for some debate. He felt Oscar twitch, conceding the point. “And if we are right about the alchemist, about what may be waiting on that island, we don’t know about any of them.”  
  
“I know.” Oscar’s hand reached up and smoothed through Zolf’s hair. “I know, I know.” The silence returned. Heavier and darker than it had been. Zolf knew they agreed, knew that Oscar understood the need for secrecy as well as he did. And yet every conversation along these lines ended the same way, with a distance between them Zolf couldn’t stand a moment longer.  
  
“I love you.” He said it before the idea had fully formed in his mind. Oscar jerked his head up and looked at him, his eyes wide open now. “I mean I know that’s probably not what you’re looking for from this. And it’s definitely not what you’re looking for from me. And Gods knows it’s pretty inconvenient, trust me, I’m well aware of that. But you know how well not talking about my feelings has gone for me before. So don’t feel under any obligation or anything but I just thought, y’know, that you should know. That I love you. And there ain’t nothing I can do about it.” Oscar’s face was somewhere between shock and helpless mirth. Zolf caught the edges of a smile in his expression and sat up.  
  
“Don’t you dare laugh at me.” He growled. This time when he moved to get out of bed there was no joking in it. Oscar in turn lunged forward and caught him by the shoulders. Zolf may have been shorter, but he was also stronger, and his twisting would have freed him if Oscar hadn’t frozen both of them by starting to speak.  
  
“Two important things before you go.” He said, hoisting himself so he was leaning over Zolf’s back, practically whispering in his ear. “One, I love you too. And no, you’re not the person the me of two years ago would have pursued for anything other than an ill-advised fling. But that was me before this.” He gestured to his scar, “and this” indicating the places their bodies touched. “I’m not that man anymore. And I think I’m old enough to know what I want.” Zolf drew in a breath to interrupt, but Oscar held up a hand to stop him. “Two, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at this whole ridiculous situation. I am living in an inn at the literal end of the world, in love with a person who is the opposite of everything I’ve ever thought I wanted. I’ve found out that he loves me too the night before his friends, who we all thought were dead, come here and more than likely take him on a dangerous mission. A mission I am sending him on, no less.” He paused for breath. “If I had written this, the critics would have crucified me for my lack of realism.” Zolf couldn’t help it, he laughed. He could feel Oscar’s slightly hysterical answering giggle through the skin of his back, and he reached up to grasp the arm that encircled his shoulders.  
  
“Make us a play.” He said, once the laughter had subsided. “When all this is over. Make us a play and we can leave London when it's performed and you can enjoy the fallout from a safe distance.”  
  
“While you grumble at my self involvment?”  
  
“Of course.” Zolf twisted in Oscar’s arms so he could kiss the first part of his face he came across. “Somewhere warm.”  
  
“But not humid.”  
  
“No. Fresh air, sea breezes. Somewhere you can write our ridiculous adventures so no one can believe you.”  
  
“Ok.” Oscar fell back onto the bed, dragging Zolf with him to settle back on his chest. “Sleep?”  
  
“Might as well, busy day tomorrow.” Zolf made himself comfortable, pushing and pulling at Oscar until he had found the most comfortable spot on the meat of his shoulder. Oscar’s hand curved automatically around his back and Zolf closed his eyes.  
  
“Goodnight my love.” Zolf opened one eye.  
  
“No.” He said simply. “I don’t think so.”  
  
“It was worth a try.” Oscar grinned in the darkness.  
  
“Good night Oscar. I love you, despite almost everything.”  
  
“Good night dear.”  
  
Zolf lay there, eyes closed and after a few minutes he felt the grip of Oscar’s arm on his back relax. He drifted, and somewhere between memory and fantasy he could feel the warmth of sunshine on his face, smell the salt of a sea breeze. He slid into sleep, and dreamt of a new world.


End file.
